Yes Donald Trump, You Are President, And Therefore You Do Own Obamacare

In the past Donald Trump claimed that he alone could fix Obamacare. He turned out to have no plan of his own, leaving this to the Republicans in Congress. They did not have a real plan either. Now he says that Obamacare should be repealed and that, “We’re not going to own it. I’m not going to own it. I can tell you, the Republicans are not going to own it.”

Sorry, Donald, you do own Obamacare. You took an oath to faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States. The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land, and as head of the executive branch, you are responsible for administering the program.

Despite Republican claims, the Obamacare exchanges are not in a death spiral. The program was strong when Donald Trump assumed responsibility for it, and if it fails, it is his fault.

Donald Trump not only fails to understand the policy. He doesn’t even understand the process to attempt to repeal and replace it. He called for an end to the filibuster saying, “The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately.” While some things the Republicans would like to do would require sixty votes, only fifty-one votes were required for the Senate health care plan, and they couldn’t come up with that many.

The Republican plans to repeal and replace Obamacare failed because they had no real plan to replace it with. Fortunately a handful of Republicans have also announced they will not vote for the next plan–repeal without a replacement at this time.

In stopping the Republicans from repealing Obamacare, there is a sign that resistance works which should be applied to other areas of the Republican agenda. It will be even harder for Republicans to ram through unpopular legislation next year during an election year. After that, they will hopefully suffer loses making it even harder for them.

If the Republicans want to please voters and work for the good of the country, they should work with Democrats to strengthen and improve Obamacare. High premiums and out of pocket expenses were characteristic of the individual market prior to Obamacare, and more action is needed to fix this. A public option and/or Medicare buy-in is needed. Of course it is pure fantasy to think that the Republicans will do this, so if we are going to fantasize, we might as well encourage them to pass a single payer system.